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Because you cited me, I think you refer to what I said about atari and how it is explained by Endo sensei?

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

The blades of scissors are ....

If so I can clearly state that this image does definitely not match what is practiced when learning or using atari the way Endo sensei teaches it.
atari on the contrary is about forces moving towards/against each other. atari means sort "impact". That's even part of the word meaning. Like can be seen in atemi.

As I said above:
I did only find this concept in the work of teachers having a background in Endo sensei's aikidō.

Quote:

Carl Thompson wrote:

... would you say Endo Shihan has it? Do you think what he does is comparable to Dan Harden, Akuzawa Sensei, Mike Sigman et al?

I am simply not qualified to answer this question:
I only met Dan. And I only met him once.
I don't know what Endo practices in private. Whether he does solo work and if so what sort of.

Feeling Endo and feeling Dan has some similarities. And both feel different from most other teachers I know.
Endo's excercises for learning atari have some similarities with some exercices Dan showed us.
The "background" - trying to understand what Ueshiba did and said using the chinese internals as kind of translator is indentical.
Some principals are identical.

But what struck me most: When I attended a seminar of a very near student of Endo sensei, he let us have our hands on his back to feel where and how he generates ellbow power.
(He did not use the word then, but did, what he did.) I Dan remembers how he showed us is back in Spring in the Netherlands he will exactly know what this gyu tried to make us feel. Being asked, what he felt, one student said: Your back kind of "opens up" ...)
He let us extend arm up and leg down, center in the middle of both "intents".
He let us move one side down to bring the other side up.
He let us bring our center in our hands using our intent connecting both via our back.
And so on.

So I think, what Endo does is comparabel. But different.
It was him who made me listen up when I started reading Dan's texts here on aikiweb.
And it was Dan who gave me some clues to better understand and better being able to do, what Endo teaches.
It was a near student of Endo who suddenly and - for me - totally unexpected but clealy used words and practices I knew from Dan and taught the aikidō of Endo.

I think they are heading in the same direction but walking on different paths toward the same aim.

Hi Carston
And as you may recall I spoke favorably of Endo before you and I met. Why? From watching him move. It's nice to hear them using Chinese references , as Ueshiba always did, and to becoming more detailed.
Dan

Actually -- there is. Humans are a multiple inverted pendulum -- and you stabilize a multiple inverted pendulum by bouncing it vertically from the support at a certain range of frequencies of simple harmonic oscillation (can we spell -- "furitama"?). See here for a triple- pendulum, stably inverted -- stability of this system requires no feedback control whatsoever -- just the pure physics of motion. The stability parameters (frequency range etc.) are given by a diffy-q Mathieu function.

"Other considerations, however, reveal limitations to the pendulum model. It successfully explains differences in energy exchange between walking and running, but it does not quantitatively explain how they should vary as a function of walking speed. For example, as speed increases, there are changes in the kinetic and gravitational potential energy exchange34 and the stance leg appears to behave less like a pendulum, but the pendulum analogy does not explain why this is the case. It gives no reason why longer and faster steps (up to the theoretical maximum walking speed) should require a different amount of mechanical work and force than shorter and slower steps. Taken literally, pendulum mechanics predict that a step requires no work or force whatsoever.17 Once walking has commenced, there is no reason why work must be performed to maintain the conservative motion. The pendulum analogy also does not apply to double-limb support, where a pendulum (inverted or otherwise) clearly cannot swing. Although the pendulum analogy is important for understanding how walking can be economical, it does not explain why walking costs energy at all. In that respect, the inverted pendulum model is incomplete."

Your whole inverted pendulum model falls apart at just a cursory glance. As soon as you look at it in a complex model, especially the human body ... well, you have a better chance at winning the Powerball Lottery ... twice in a row.

Do you really want to get into "simple harmonic oscillation", which by its definition has no real forces acting on it? For example, "In real oscillators, friction, or damping, slows the motion of the system. Due to frictional force, the velocity decreases proportional to the acting frictional force. Whereas Simple harmonic motion oscillates with only the restoring force acting on the system, Damped Harmonic motion experiences friction." You are basing your theory on a simple model that is used in unrealistic conditions, let alone based upon the human model. Your "simple harmonic oscillation" falls apart at just a cursory glance.

Quote:

Erick Mead wrote:

All props to the IS/IP crowd for what they work on doing within it -- this is the sandbox of stability that they play in. The physics says so.

The oscillatory component dynamic or (what is missed by those who resist the physics on this point) its physical equivalent in potentials -- formed by poising moments within the body ) -- is the inherent basis for aiki manipulation of stability. The physics AND Ueshiba said so

No, the physics doesn't say so. Your models have never shown any basis in the theoretical world for working, let alone the complex, real world of the human body.

AND THEN, when someone actually does gain the required knowledge (and wins a Nobel prize for it) of how the human body functions in relation to the physics world, that will only determine the majority of people, not those rare, unique martial artists who have IP/aiki. All real world tests to this date have shown that these people's body functions entirely differently than normal people.

And no, Ueshiba didn't say so. Current literal translations show that Ueshiba stated and restated ancient martial training theories in regards to IP/aiki.

But, all this is off topic. Please start a different thread if you want to continue trying to use physics in regards to aikido.

"Other considerations, however, reveal limitations to the pendulum model. It successfully explains differences in energy exchange between walking and running, but it does not quantitatively explain how they should vary as a function of walking speed. For example, as speed increases, there are changes in the kinetic and gravitational potential energy exchange34 and the stance leg appears to behave less like a pendulum, but the pendulum analogy does not explain why this is the case. It gives no reason why longer and faster steps (up to the theoretical maximum walking speed) should require a different amount of mechanical work and force than shorter and slower steps. Taken literally, pendulum mechanics predict that a step requires no work or force whatsoever.17 Once walking has commenced, there is no reason why work must be performed to maintain the conservative motion. The pendulum analogy also does not apply to double-limb support, where a pendulum (inverted or otherwise) clearly cannot swing. Although the pendulum analogy is important for understanding how walking can be economical, it does not explain why walking costs energy at all. In that respect, the inverted pendulum model is incomplete."

Your whole inverted pendulum model falls apart at just a cursory glance. As soon as you look at it in a complex model, especially the human body ... well, you have a better chance at winning the Powerball Lottery ... twice in a row.

Do you really want to get into "simple harmonic oscillation", which by its definition has no real forces acting on it? For example, "In real oscillators, friction, or damping, slows the motion of the system. Due to frictional force, the velocity decreases proportional to the acting frictional force. Whereas Simple harmonic motion oscillates with only the restoring force acting on the system, Damped Harmonic motion experiences friction." You are basing your theory on a simple model that is used in unrealistic conditions, let alone based upon the human model. Your "simple harmonic oscillation" falls apart at just a cursory glance.

No, the physics doesn't say so. Your models have never shown any basis in the theoretical world for working, let alone the complex, real world of the human body.

AND THEN, when someone actually does gain the required knowledge (and wins a Nobel prize for it) of how the human body functions in relation to the physics world, that will only determine the majority of people, not those rare, unique martial artists who have IP/aiki. All real world tests to this date have shown that these people's body functions entirely differently than normal people.

And no, Ueshiba didn't say so. Current literal translations show that Ueshiba stated and restated ancient martial training theories in regards to IP/aiki.

But, all this is off topic. Please start a different thread if you want to continue trying to use physics in regards to aikido.

Incomplete != wrong. Iterated, cumulative approximations are the foundation of learning and understanding anything, including human kinematics, aikido and IP. Basic models may not explain everything all at once, but they do describe portions of phenomena sufficiently to make confident, reliable conclusions and predictions. And, most importantly, the models themselves suggest improvements for creating future models that are more accurate, capture more reality, and lead to even better desciptions and predictions.

What will happen, what will the physics denier say, when someone does bother to do a broad and deep study of an IP practitioner's movement, and what the practitioner is doing is explained by biomechanics? There seems to be a strong need in some folk to keep very special what they do vs what other people do.

The moment the word "force" was first introduced into this conversation, physics stuck its head into the room. If we all train for different reasons and that's ok, we all also should have the freedom to understand and discuss what we do in different ways. Physics is an excellent framework for discussing movement in the real world. It absolutely belongs in this discussion.

What will happen, what will the physics denier say, when someone does bother to do a broad and deep study of an IP practitioner's movement, and what the practitioner is doing is explained by biomechanics? There seems to be a strong need in some folk to keep very special what they do vs what other people do.

No one's saying that it can't potentially be explained by biomechanics - they have said that existing attempts with current models don't work very well.

Also, IME, getting a very fine grained understanding of exactly what tissues are doing what only gets you so far. Past a certain point it's interesting, but it doesn't really help you to do - which is what most folks are interested in, I'd say.

Incomplete != wrong. Iterated, cumulative approximations are the foundation of learning and understanding anything, including human kinematics, aikido and IP. Basic models may not explain everything all at once, but they do describe portions of phenomena sufficiently to make confident, reliable conclusions and predictions. And, most importantly, the models themselves suggest improvements for creating future models that are more accurate, capture more reality, and lead to even better desciptions and predictions.

What will happen, what will the physics denier say, when someone does bother to do a broad and deep study of an IP practitioner's movement, and what the practitioner is doing is explained by biomechanics? There seems to be a strong need in some folk to keep very special what they do vs what other people do.

The moment the word "force" was first introduced into this conversation, physics stuck its head into the room. If we all train for different reasons and that's ok, we all also should have the freedom to understand and discuss what we do in different ways. Physics is an excellent framework for discussing movement in the real world. It absolutely belongs in this discussion.

Any change that you are related to the English philosopher John Locke ? Your argumentation is quite the same!

And I agree - although not an engineer or physicist myself, I would love to see the biomechanics of Aikido, T'ai chi chuan, and the IP/IS exercises explained through biomechanics.

It would certainly help demystify some of the things that come up repeatedly in discussions like this.

Hey, I don't believe in magic, at least not in the sense some do (good sleight of hand is another thing entirely). So I think you, Krystal, are correct in many ways. However, I also agree with Mr. Li that the current models of how the human animal moves, can move, can develop are probably in their infancies. And then there's the fact that I really don't need to know that it is an electrical impulse that fires that informs my muscle to move in order to sit here and type.

The problem, of course, is explaining how this stuff works sufficiently well to allow for transmission and possibly advances in training. There's where I think the models have fallen apart. I think there are those who have developed some degree of these skills but the reality is that even they really don't know what it is they're doing on a higher level. Which makes for a devilishly difficult problem when it comes time to teach. Yes, we have the old, traditional Chinese explanations but hopefully at some point some additional clarity will be found. So I think we *do* need people to ask these questions, to push, to study, to try different things. And with increased clarity of *how* some of these things might be happening will hopefully come better methods for teaching and hopefully new insights.

But this will require an interaction between people to happen. And open minds. And cooperation rather than confrontation. And then also consider that much of this might be totally irrelevant to wide swaths of what is called the Aikido Community. Things evolved and many are quite happy with where they find themselves and I think that should be respected as well.

But it has to go both ways...

So find a place to train. Keep an open mind. Stay critical. Then train and train some more. The rest, well, it's all just discussion and debate. Proof is when the hands cross...

" The pendulum analogy also does not apply to double-limb support, where a pendulum (inverted or otherwise) clearly cannot swing."

This is actually a bad analysis on the part of the author. Double limb support can be treated as just an inverted pendulum from the metacenter located between the supports -- which are not normally nearly broad enough to create much propping moment against an applied overturning force -- and when they are-- they are only in one plane and so the treatment is a perfect inverted pendulum in the perpendicular to the plane running between the feet on a long-base kamae.

In other words -- the human body has effectively zero static stability -- all stability is dynamic -- like a bicycle.

Plus we are talking about a system where we have some other object as a link in the pendulum chains -- be it q weapon or opponent. This makes me chuckle when I see the video of Ueshiba with the boar spear form of chinkon kishin starting at 4:50 where he points at his center -- and then watch what he does with the spear to illustrate the point he is making about his center. And the same again at 5:00. He also has this recurring little reflexive "pop and drop" to the balls of his feet and back to the flats. His performance of various techniques in other respects has always had a bit of "hop" to it, and I am hardly the first to have said it.

At 5:28 he shows a spherical spiral resolving to a vertical thrust up -- and then a reverse spiral ending in a vertical thrust down. Accident? OK, if you say so -- but I see what he is getting at.
It ends as it began in a vertical orientation of the body and spear. Zhan zhuang, anyone ? The entire exercise can be viewed as an exploded view of miniscule excursions of the balance center one can feel when doing zhan zhuang-- and which you will notice if you stand there long enough -- and which -- might just be the point of the exercise demonstrated....

What we don't usually recognize is that we have a normal tonic vibration which is -- as you say below -- normally highly damped. Essential tremor patients lose the neurological damping element of normal tone -- and so they shake involuntarily -- but at a characteristic frequency, ~5-10 Hz or so -- the resonant fundamental frequency and first harmonic of the human body -- and the latter is precisely the frequency of a proper furitama. This is hardly a coincidence in its relation to aikido -- as this vibration is characteristic of all the shaking forms of chinkon kishin or aiki-taiso, call it as as you prefer. "Spirit of bees" Ueshiba called it.

Quote:

"Although the pendulum analogy is important for understanding how walking can be economical, it does not explain why walking costs energy at all. In that respect, the inverted pendulum model is incomplete."

I believe that I said "some kinks remain." More importantly, the study was looking at energy-optimizing aspects of this system for locomotion -- we are talking about optimizing exploits of instability and structural damage -- and energy conservation is largely a secondary aspect.

Quote:

For example, "In real oscillators, friction, or damping, slows the motion of the system."

Too true, but the existence of damping can be modulated-- and normally IS modulated. By modulation, a moment (a kinetic potential) can be created and stored -- in the structure-- which I believe is a major point of the discussion ...

Control of the damping mechanisms is key to the release and deployment of such potentials. This has a strong component of reflex action that the chinkon kishin/aiki-taiso training is design to tune into the neuro-muscular system at a deep (spinal/cerebellar) level -- not voluntary motor control -- and thus extremely responsive -- spooky fast -- far faster than any voluntary action is capable of.

Quote:

And no, Ueshiba didn't say so. Current literal translations show that Ueshiba stated and restated ancient martial training theories in regards to IP/aiki.

This is probably so. I don't think any one is disputing that this line of empirical development goes very deep and has many branches -- but we are only just now starting the analytical examination of it.

When people can move things without moving anything physically -- I'll drop talk about physics. But until then -- "Il muove."

... but I still dont know what it is that is moving in the dual opposing spirals in IP. Is it my limbs, a sequence of internal muscles/physical structures contracting/activating, or is it something else?

Similarly, if you look at the hand of someone with essential tremor the predominant shake is -- torsional -- What is involved in the dual spirals may equivalently and dynamically, be seen as simply driving the inherent tonic frequency with a resonance (furitama). Tekubi furi, is likewise, a driven spiral pulse out the limbs, either continuously or out to a singularity and single snap reversal.

That gentlemen also, FWIW, illustrates the difference that I see in the meaning of atari as "clash" in the impact sense and the different sense as illustrated by the scissors image -- and which I see, applied in a different way, in the Endo atari video exercise also...

I am simply not qualified to answer this question:
I only met Dan. And I only met him once.
I don't know what Endo practices in private. Whether he does solo work and if so what sort of.

Feeling Endo and feeling Dan has some similarities. And both feel different from most other teachers I know.
Endo's excercises for learning atari have some similarities with some exercices Dan showed us.
The "background" - trying to understand what Ueshiba did and said using the chinese internals as kind of translator is indentical.
Some principals are identical.

But what struck me most: When I attended a seminar of a very near student of Endo sensei, he let us have our hands on his back to feel where and how he generates ellbow power.
(He did not use the word then, but did, what he did.) I Dan remembers how he showed us is back in Spring in the Netherlands he will exactly know what this gyu tried to make us feel. Being asked, what he felt, one student said: Your back kind of "opens up" ...)
He let us extend arm up and leg down, center in the middle of both "intents".
He let us move one side down to bring the other side up.
He let us bring our center in our hands using our intent connecting both via our back.
And so on.

So I think, what Endo does is comparabel. But different.
It was him who made me listen up when I started reading Dan's texts here on aikiweb.
And it was Dan who gave me some clues to better understand and better being able to do, what Endo teaches.
It was a near student of Endo who suddenly and - for me - totally unexpected but clealy used words and practices I knew from Dan and taught the aikidō of Endo.

I think they are heading in the same direction but walking on different paths toward the same aim.

I've only taken ukemi for Endo Shihan a couple of times, but that is very interesting to read.

Quote:

Dan Harden wrote:

Hi Carston
And as you may recall I spoke favorably of Endo before you and I met. Why? From watching him move. It's nice to hear them using Chinese references , as Ueshiba always did, and to becoming more detailed.
Dan

Dan, have you been able to get hands-on with Endo? Have you felt anything like what you are doing in his students?

So, you put together some science and use research to try to cobble it together. When you're called on the research and it invalidates your theory, you reply that it's "a bad analysis" and "some kinks remain"? There are all kinds of questions after that. Why didn't you point it out? Why did you use bad research? Why do you believe you know more than a published author in a known journal? Etc, etc. Far too much to go into here.

Truthfully, your whole post seems like you tossed together a bunch of terms and scientific principles and hoped no one would really take the time to give more than a cursory glance at what you wrote. Now, that's what it seems like on my end. I really don't know what you're doing, I'm just saying what it appears like to me. I'm hoping that it's not the case. But I don't really want to get into "bad analysis" or "some kinks remain" anymore because, to me, it seems that it's mostly the bulk of your posts regarding IP/aiki.

When you're called on the research and it invalidates your theory, you reply that it's "a bad analysis" and "some kinks remain"? ... Why didn't you point it out?

I believe that the phrase "kinks remain" WAS -fairly - pointing that out. None of the "kinks" affect my analysis.

You want application-- Great. So do I. Go get some... I want understanding also -- so I can extend both my application and all applications.

Quote:

Why did you use bad research? Why do you believe you know more than a published author in a known journal?

The latter is a fallacy of appeal to authority -- the fact is that when an analysis of the model is objectively in error -- the fact is, it is in error. I just showed you the error he made in noting the nature of the supports in one plane but neglecting it in another plane -- it is not a matter of opinion.

But in fairness to his research issue, it was probably not a necessary condition to consider, either. The distinction matters for what I am doing -- but likely not for what he was doing. That's another reason we have to question the uses of any research or other source of "authority" it may not be well-fitted to our problem-- but that doesn't mean it is useless.

An item of bad analysis in a piece of research does not invalidate the whole thing. Galileo was not wrong conceptually or empirically about the nature of gravity just because he had not calculated the value of G -- he was just less precise. The thing about science is that there really is no "bad" research, and there is certainly no such thing as perfect research. Negative results are as valuable -- often more valuable --than results that confirm the hypothesis. Very often a key error -- once seen for what it is by good critical analysis -- can be of more value than either the premise or the result of the research. It's called serendipity.

Before you can go doing experiments or decide what data to gather or how -- first you have to look at things like this and think through the problems conceptually - or you have no idea what to go test for or what data to try and capture. You don't just pile up arbitrary measurements (or anecdotal reports or subjective impressions) and hope they tell you something. They can help frame your working concepts, however.

I believe that the phrase "kinks remain" WAS -fairly - pointing that out. None of the "kinks" affect my analysis.

You want application-- Great. So do I. Go get some... I want understanding also -- so I can extend both my application and all applications.

The latter is a fallacy of appeal to authority -- the fact is that when an analysis of the model is objectively in error -- the fact is, it is in error. I just showed you the error he made in noting the nature of the supports in one plane but neglecting it in another plane -- it is not a matter of opinion.

But in fairness to his research issue, it was probably not a necessary condition to consider, either. The distinction matters for what I am doing -- but likely not for what he was doing. That's another reason we have to question the uses of any research or other source of "authority" it may not be well-fitted to our problem-- but that doesn't mean it is useless.

An item of bad analysis in a piece of research does not invalidate the whole thing. Galileo was not wrong conceptually or empirically about the nature of gravity just because he had not calculated the value of G -- he was just less precise. The thing about science is that there really is no "bad" research, and there is certainly no such thing as perfect research. Negative results are as valuable -- often more valuable --than results that confirm the hypothesis. Very often a key error -- once seen for what it is by good critical analysis -- can be of more value than either the premise or the result of the research. It's called serendipity.

Before you can go doing experiments or decide what data to gather or how -- first you have to look at things like this and think through the problems conceptually - or you have no idea what to go test for or what data to try and capture. You don't just pile up arbitrary measurements (or anecdotal reports or subjective impressions) and hope they tell you something. They can help frame your working concepts, however.

I think before *you* get into any analysis of IP/aiki, you should be called on to produce it. Those who have been vetted by thousands of people, pointedly deny your analysis has anything to do with what we do. And contrary to all the demands that were put on us.....
You have never shown up in a room of teachers, including shihans, and were judged as having any exceptional skills regarding IP at all.
So since you can't do what we do, and you can't discuss anything WE recognize...Just what are you analyzing and why hasn't it produced extraordinary IP skills in you? Or are you claiming you possess them?
I think fair is fair, Eric. You need to show.
Dan

I think before *you* get into any analysis of IP/aiki, you should be called on to produce it. Those who have been vetted by thousands of people, pointedly deny your analysis has anything to do with what we do. And contrary to all the demands that were put on us.....
You have never shown up in a room of teachers, including shihans, and were judged as having any exceptional skills regarding IP at all.
So since you can't do what we do, and you can't discuss anything WE recognize...Just what are you analyzing and why hasn't it produced extraordinary IP skills in you? Or are you claiming you possess them?
I think fair is fair, Eric. You need to show.
Dan

A kinesiologist does not have to be an Olympic sprinter to analyze and suggest improvement to a runner's form. I dont have to be a car to understand how an internal combustion engine works. As a matter of fact, not being a car makes it a bit easier to understand an ICE.

Why do so many of the folk who do have IP resist having the skill analyzed? What is it that these folks offer as analysis and explanation? Why is it that some of the IP folks say that yeah, it is just different biomechanics, and others say that biomechanics couldn't possibly explain what they do?

A kinesiologist does not have to be an Olympic sprinter to analyze and suggest improvement to a runner's form. I dont have to be a car to understand how an internal combustion engine works. As a matter of fact, not being a car makes it a bit easier to understand an ICE.

Why do so many of the folk who do have IP resist having the skill analyzed? What is it that these folks offer as analysis and explanation? Why is it that some of the IP folks say that yeah, it is just different biomechanics, and others say that biomechanics couldn't possibly explain what they do?

huh? Nobody is "resisting" skill being analyzed (check that one post where Stanford scientists did a test on a ICMA master). All the IP folks are saying is that no matter how much you use scientific language and all that, it won't help you get the skills that IP folks are going after.

Unless stated otherwise, all wisdom, follies, harshness, malice that may spring up from my writing are attributable only to me.

Creating a model of the exterior movement, won't help at all. It is the interior reorganization that is the factor that MAKES the difference in the external model. And that...will never be tracked. One example, is that study tracking how the ICMA made a punch. It tracked lines of force that anyone can copy. No one will equal it by attempting to mimic his movement.

Eric is not an engineer. I have PHD and and Masters degreed engineers I work with who cannot figure out how to model what is going on. and THEY? They train it and can do some things. Interestingly being taught the exact way to move, has not availed them.
Mimicing the form simply doesn't work. I can stick out my arm and have someone push on it, and then have someone copy me. Zip. I can tell them exactly what I am doing...zip. Then I can tell them how I am reorganizing inside and they can start to get a "feel" for what to do.

It has been taught by metaphor for generations for good reason. I have perhaps a few dozen bodyworkers, also doctors and chiropractors who train with me. They know all the body parts. It hasn't helped them one bit over anyone else.
Using intent to connect and motivate the body in accord with opposing forces is a mental challenge more than a physical one. It is also why virtually all of Eric's analysis fails. When you don't understand what you need to do to support what, and how to move what with what, that's one failure. When you don't understand how the mind has to organize it- you wind up with all these models, which virtually no one who understands this stuff has supported.

It sure as hell isn't some secret. there are thousands of people training this. Many of whom read Aikiweb. They just know that it is *intent* that makes the defining difference. It is the mind f#$%k that has challenged budo players for generations. There is a reason that entire martial systems are names after and include that single word; intent!
I offered to help the best and only way I know how.... in person. Even then it is a process you undertake, a different way to use the body that will take years.

Why do so many of the folk who do have IP resist having the skill analyzed? What is it that these folks offer as analysis and explanation? Why is it that some of the IP folks say that yeah, it is just different biomechanics, and others say that biomechanics couldn't possibly explain what they do?

you have it in the opposite. the folks who do IP/IS stuffs wanted to analyze more than anyone else. we don't really care about the mystical stuffs. the thing that we stressed on is that folks who want to analyze it have to be able to produce it and not on the internet, behind some keyboard. that's the key. i wrote some stuffs on reverse breathing recently on aikiweb. did that sound like we don't want it analyze? we want to know how it work, why it work, what make it work, and most important how to train/reproduce the process. does that sound like unscientific to you? even Einstein, many of theories were/are theories until we can prove it. same here. this is a physical body skill. prove it = show me in person. prove it != long dissertation on the internet.

you might not be an olympic sprinter, but you have to prove that you can sprint and understand not just the physical, but the mental behind sprinting to get folks to listen. even if you are not olympic caliber sprinter, but you can show that your methodology produce much greater results than average sprinters, if i was an olympic caliber sprinter, i would have paid attention to your methodology. again show = prove it = sprinting results, not one, not two, but many for better statistical validity.

something that you need to understand about IP/IS. there is an old saying that governs the process: heart leads mind; mind leads qi/ki; qi/ki leads physical movements. lets make it a bit clear on that. emotions activate/affect the brain; brain/thought controls/activates various biochemical, electrical and mechanical processes; biochemical, electrical and mechanical processes control/activate physical movements. if you analyze the physical movement, you just got the tail end of the thing, i.e. 1/3 of the equation, i.e. incomplete analysis.

We have a recurring disconnect here. The question is ways of knowledge -- and the topic of knowledge being discussed is whether "aiki is a clash of forces" -- That problem begs physical descriptions to discuss meaningfully -- It certainly may admit methodological descriptions as well.

But appeals to authority are not a basis for rational discussion -- they are appeals to trust, maybe decent rhetorical devices -- but not rational arguments. Reason does not depend on trust. That is one reason why reason is particularly useful. A certificate or degree does not prove or disprove anything. Just because I have a law degree does not mean a layman is wrong on the law when he disagrees with me -- the law is a VERY BIG THING. The physical world is even bigger.

Is it true that there is only one way of knowing something? -- Only one way of describing something? Only one useful way?

Not in physics. Not in engineering. Many different conventions exist for different purposes and each is judged on their usefulness of description or application. Methodological approaches ARE more useful for some purposes -- but so what? A magnetic field has two mutually irreconcilable conceptual conventions for its physical description -- and yet both are indispensably useful and one cannot be substituted for the other for certain purposes. Only one of them is for complex currents where there are objects in the field (and, FWIW the concept of torque is useful there too in relating things involving complex magnetic field currents).

Anyone is free to reserve their own judgment on the purpose of the knowledge and its utility -- but objective description is objective description. Unless a concept that fits the facts better is available, you work with and test the best concepts you can find with the facts that you observe. I work from my personal observations and experience to found my concepts. I presume everyone else does also.

This is an observation of the human body -- I have one -- and others at my disposal...

Ah! Finally out of the time out room for pointing out the obvious......

This might come as a surprise to some people: Dan Harden fought against the VERY STUFF that he is now teaching. He walked away from his training for awhile because he was stuck at a crossroads. He was as closed-minded as everybody else who gets to that point in their training experiences.

You try like hell to figure out what the hell is going on and why what you are doing does not work. You are trying like hell to fit what someone is struggling to show you into your closed-minded, preconceived parameters. You are facing the "cliff of paradigm shift". You can either walk off the ledge into the unknown and discover a new world that does not fit neatly inside of what you believe are the limits of our world experiences, or you will go back to the safety and security of what you know, while discounting and denigrating where you almost went.

Suddenly you recognize that you do not have a complete paradigm of understanding under the "old ways", BUT you do need to be able to do things in a very different way. My students use to ask me to explain how the hell this stuff was working. They stopped, because all they got was the same line: "I am a student myself. A complete understanding of this is above my pay-grade. The best that I can do is to share with you the explanations and the ways of my teachers. We are all in this struggle together." The amazing thing is that this stuff works. You change in ways that leave people scratching their heads trying to figure out how you did what you just did. We struggle daily to better understand what we are doing so that we can teach it better. Anybody who has been training with Dan Harden will tell you how his teaching paradigms and methods just get better. This is a reflection of that very process!

We are left at the same precipice that we started off at. Jun sent me to the proverbial time out room simply because I pointed out the obvious- WITHOUT ATTACKING ANYONE IN PARTICULAR AND WITH A GOOD DOSE OF HUMOR- The struggle between the closed-mind and the open-mind happens inside of ALL OF US! Getting hands on with someone who can actually do this stuff is only one aspect. If you are not able to make that paradigm shift, you will not continue to do the work and you will not make the substantial changes that this very, very hard work allows you to make. People need to really get off their "high horses" and stop relying on what they think they know. If you want to genuinely change through this work, you have to let go of where you are in order to make that crucial paradigm shift.

Simply ask Dan, Ark, etc..... how many people they have taught and how many of those people have actually made that critical paradigm shift and stuck with this work. Then again, we can continue debating things from perspectives that will get you no closer to any real understanding, let alone real change. When the posts become personal, we are far beneath the level necessary to accomplish anything positive- that was why I asked that the thread be closed. A lively debate can take place with people vigorously putting forth their ideas. If those people are not open to considering something different and even changing their perspectives based upon different information, then it is not really a debate of open-minds. Just more of what we have too much of in our world.

I've commented about the encounter on another thread. We can PM if you need more detail.

Quote:

Carsten Möllering wrote:

Do you comprehend what I said from your own experience?

Not with regards to Endo Shihan. I get the impression that there is no clash of forces in atari because there is no force to clash. I consider it a sensitivity exercise. I think Sensei may sometimes "talk similar talk", but the walk he is walking is in a completely different direction to what I think the IP/Aiki people are doing. That's not necessarily a bad thing but it's what surprised me about Dan's comment.

Why do so many of the folk who do have IP resist having the skill analyzed? What is it that these folks offer as analysis and explanation? Why is it that some of the IP folks say that yeah, it is just different biomechanics, and others say that biomechanics couldn't possibly explain what they do?

No resistance - but you're late to the party, most of the folks have training it have already gone through the stages of trying to describe it with existing physical models and realized that it doesn't work that well.

That doesn't mean that we don't talk about it - we do all the time, but it doesn't really make sense until you get some hands on.

Of course, biomechanics can potentially explain everything happening in the body at some level, nobody's denying that. I don't think anybody said that it "couldn't possibly explain what they do" unless they're talking about existing models.

Just to blather a little more... I am very sympathetic to trying to figure out a better model of what's going on. However, I read some posts and see descriptions that seem to be capturing what would be at best only a small part of the necessary parts of what I've experienced. What I mean by that is that reading Erick's threads, for instance, eventually make me glass over, and I've got a fairly solid scientific background. The reason isn't just the elaborate complexity of it, but that it seems to me completely missing something I've found within my training in the stuff that is required -- both the intent driven aspect of some of this but also that there appears to be a different form of conditioning (physical and mental) that seems to allow this stuff to manifest itself.

So much of the physics explanation could be to some extent accurate, however, the question is whether you can get the same results as what I've felt solely by doing those things on an "external" level. And in my experience has been a resounding "no".

So to try to better classify my understanding of what's happening, let me propose this. Some of this stuff seems to involve being able to manifest a very subtle degree of intention driven internal control across the entire body, recruiting a vastly larger percentage of the overall structure and strength to control, and, if necessary, generate power. That ability to control across the entire structure in this complex and subtle fashion as well as being able to "wind" and engage long connections in a continuously dynamic fashion allows for a sort of counterbalancing internally that creates a tremendously powerful and stable structure that can both redirect incoming forces and generate new forces virtually instantly. Hence when the person who has these skills is touched there is an instantaneous "melding" with that structure (blending?) and the practitioner can still move with tremendous subtly or power all depending solely on what they choose to do.

The point here is that for me, at least, this requires a great degree of focus and "expanded awareness". Although I find the more I practice and train the more things just seem to happen "automatically".

So if we accept something along these lines (and I'm not claiming I'm right, it's just sort of in a nutshell how I'm thinking today) then the external "physics" explanations aren't really terribly important as they miss the underlying "operating system" of how the body is being used. The external physics explanations also seem to assume that everyone is "the same" in some sense or another and that there is nothing "extra" that needs to come to the table. And no one I know of who is legit in any way in the IS/IP camp would say that. There is a tremendous amount of work that goes in to developing the sensitivity and fine control. Without those skills and that development the rest doesn't really matter. Or to put it another way, it ain't what you're doing, it's how you're doing it. So it would be like describing the trajectory and pivot points of swinging a bat. Yeah, that's all important for hitting a ball a long distance. But you'll never get any distance until you can learn how to use your body in such a way as to swing the bat strongly with good follow through and then do it at exactly the right time to hit a 95 mile per hour fast ball. There's lots of skill and practice that enables the end result. I'm a big guy and I can swing a bat hard and fast. And if I manage to hit the ball cleanly I could hit it a long way given my size and strength. The problem is that I don't have the skill to hit the damned ball in the first place, especially if it's being thrown by a major league pitcher.